


Train Ride

by biblionerd07



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bullies, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve is way too serious for a little kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 06:29:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1678199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every Thursday after school, Steve rides the train to take his mom dinner at work.  One day, some bullies are hassling him, and he meets a cocky dark-haired kid with a smart mouth and pockets full of rocks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Train Ride

Steven Grant Rogers was eight years old. He was the shortest kid in the neighborhood his age—even the girls were taller than he was. He was skinny and he couldn’t run and play the way the other kids could. His lungs didn’t work. His mother told him, as she rubbed her calloused hands up and down his back to coax him into breathing again, that it wasn’t his fault; she said he was so kind that up in Heaven he’d let everyone get their lungs first and by the time it was his turn all the good ones were gone and his were the only ones left. He wasn’t sure that was true, because it seemed if he was really that nice he wouldn’t feel so resentful about it, but he never contradicted her, because she said he was so brave he never complained to God about his bad lungs.

Every Thursday after school, Steve rode the train to the hospital to bring his mother supper while she worked. He was dutiful and dedicated and always made sure to get to the hospital before his mother’s scheduled break, just in case they were short-staffed and she had to eat on the run. He always accepted her soft kiss on his cheek without complaint, even though some of the boys at school said eight was too old to be getting kisses from your mother. Steve didn’t care. He knew she worked hard because he was sick so often and needed medicine and they had a hard time keeping food on the table because his father was dead; a kiss was all she asked in return and Steve could do that.

Unfortunately for Steve, his bad lungs and his acceptance of his mother’s kisses and his tiny frame all converged into some kind of target on his back for the other boys. In later years, he would also develop a strong sense of justice and a mouth far too big for his fists to back up, but at eight his soft eyes and delicate features were all bullies needed to see to hone in on him.

He was sitting importantly on the train one Thursday, carrying his little basket full of a sandwich and an apple, when he caught the eye of two older boys who were roughhousing across the aisle from him. He could feel the exact moment they decided to hassle him—it was nothing more than one boy jabbing an elbow into his friend’s ribs, but Steve had enough experience with it to know what was coming. He resolutely ignored them, even as they started talking about him in loud voices.

“That a dame over there?” The bigger boy called, tipping his head toward Steve. Steve tightened his jaw but kept his eyes focused on the window. His mother always told him to ignore bullies and they’d go away. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that had never worked for him so far.

“Way too ugly to be a dame,” the other boy guffawed. These were the kinds of boys parents worried their sons would become if they hung around pool halls, Steve was sure.

“Whatcha got there, doll face?” The first boy taunted. He was coming closer and Steve was still refusing to look at him. “Looks like dinner, Hank.” Steve finally looked up at his smug face and tightened his hold on the basket.

“Well that’s pretty good timing, Bill, wouldn’t you say?” The other boy—Hank, apparently—was grinning lazily, following his friend’s lead. Steve narrowed his eyes and went back to looking out the window.

“So what’s for dinner?” Bill was reaching for the basket and Steve jerked away.

“Leave me alone.” He tried to make his voice big and strong but he couldn’t help the way he wheezed partway through. Bill laughed at him.

“What are you gonna do about it?” He taunted. “Where you going, anyway? You got someone you’re sweet on you’re having a picnic with?” Both boys laughed hard at that, unable to contain their laughter at the idea of him having a sweetheart.

“It’s for my mother.” Steve knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left his mouth. He’d thought maybe they’d respect his mother—everyone had a mother, didn’t they? Wouldn’t these boys be upset if someone stole _their_ mother’s dinner? But instead, Bill got a hard glint in his eye and Hank looked like Christmas had come early.

“You’re having a picnic with your mommy?” Hank sputtered through peals of laughter. “She gonna change your diaper, too?”

“She gonna give you a spanking if you lose her dinner?” Bill picked up where Hank left off. He grabbed for the basket and Steve squirmed away. He couldn’t lose it—then what would she do? He thought of the times he’d heard her stomach rumble as he fell asleep because she’d gone without so he could eat, and his breathing started to pick up.

“Grab him, Hank,” Bill ordered. Hank grabbed Steve’s arms and Bill finally got hold of the basket. Steve found himself yanked up out of his seat and took the opportunity to kick out at Hank, who yelped and dropped him hard onto the floor of the train. Steve’s breath, fought for so hard already, left his body in a whoosh. And now he’d made them both mad.

“Looks like your mother never taught you any manners,” Hank said menacingly.

“Someone oughta teach him,” Bill agreed. Steve forced himself to stand up. He raised his fists.

“Give it back,” he commanded. Hank laughed, and Steve punched him. It hurt his hand enough to make him cry out. A man reading a newspaper a few seats down looked up disapprovingly, then folded his paper and moved to a different car. Steve felt like crying. Weren’t grownups supposed to help?

“You think you can punch _me_?” Hank growled. He hit Steve, hard, across the mouth, and Steve tasted blood immediately. It was a taste he was intimately familiar with, sometimes because of bullies and sometimes from coughing too much.

Suddenly, there was a _crack_ and Hank squealed, clutching at the back of his head. A rock landed next to Steve’s foot. Another _crack_ left Bill to the same fate. He dropped the basket and its contents spilled out, the apple immediately rolling away under a seat.

“You fellas got a problem?” A dark-haired kid was smirking and weighing more rocks in his hands. Steve vaguely recognized him from the schoolyard.

“We’re just teaching this little punk some manners,” Bill said authoritatively.

“Hmm.” The kid tilted his head to the side. “Seems to me like you’re the ones who need to learn some manners.”

“Mind your own business,” Hank spat. He was rewarded with another rock to the head, thrown so fast he couldn’t move out of the way. Quick as a flash, the kid threw another rock at Bill and then his hands darted into his pockets, reemerging with two more rocks.

“I could do this all day,” he warned them. The train pulled into a station and Bill and Hank made a hasty exit, but not before Hank stepped on the sandwich Steve had painstakingly made for his mother, kneeling on a chair to reach the counter. He picked it up, shoulders slumped. The kid bent down and retrieved the apple.

“Here you go, pal,” he said brightly, holding it out to Steve. Steve mumbled his thanks, cheeks burning. He hated that some random kid had just rescued him. “What’s your name?” The kid asked.

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Steve recited. The kid laughed.

“Big name for a small guy,” he teased. Steve’s chin came up reflexively, but he calmed down when he realized the guy wasn’t making fun of him.

“Well, what’s yours?” He countered.

“James Buchanan Barnes.”

Steve wanted to laugh, because that name was way bigger than his own, but he just nodded. He figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to make fun of a guy who not only helped him out, but also still had a pocket full of rocks.

“Where you going?” James Buchanan Barnes asked.

“The hospital.” Steve perked up a little. He had an important job. “My ma’s a nurse,” he bragged.

“Good thing, ‘cause she’s gonna have to fix up that lip of yours.”

“Ah, man.” Steve hadn’t felt the pain in the excitement of this kid showing up and throwing rocks, but the reminder made it slam into him quickly. James reached out a hand and poked at the split lip and Steve hissed.

“You should start carrying rocks,” James advised.

“I don’t throw very hard,” Steve admitted in a small voice. James laughed and Steve huffed a little.

“I guess I better stick around then, huh?” James said cheerfully, ignoring the way Steve had bristled.

“Why?” Steve wondered. He really didn’t have any friends. He couldn’t play ball or run around the neighborhood. Sometimes Marcy Adams came over to his house, but she never spoke to him at school. James shrugged.

“I saw you drawing at school yesterday,” he announced. Steve didn’t quite see the connection. “I’ll help you out, and you can draw me as thanks.”

“You want me to draw you?” Steve asked skeptically. He asked his mom to model for him all the time but she was always too busy. And in the five minutes he’d been talking to this kid, he didn’t get the impression James Buchanan Barnes would be able to sit still very well. James puffed out his chest and struck a formidable pose.

“I deserve a statue,” he insisted. “But I’ll settle for a drawing. Until I’m grown up.” Steve secretly thought maybe James did deserve a statue. His arm when throwing those rocks was impressive. Plus last week the teacher had held up his math workbook to show everyone how he got every question right.

“I guess I could draw you, James,” Steve said with a shrug. James wrinkled his nose.

“I hate the name James,” he pouted.

“Isn’t that your name?”

“It’s my father’s name.” His voice turned dark and his eyes went from happy and bright to distant in a single word. Steve didn’t really understand. He thought James should be happy to have a father. Steve didn’t remember his own.

“So what do you go by?” Steve asked. He wanted to make James laugh again. “Buchanan?” It worked. Steve felt himself smiling, too. The kid’s laughter was such a happy sound.

“I have to go by James at school,” he admitted with a scowl. “No one else really calls me anything.” Someday, when they were older, Steve would remember this sentence with a pang in his heart. James Buchanan Barnes didn’t have a mother who stroked his hair off his forehead and sang softly to him the way Steve’s did. He had a father, but he’d probably have been better off without him. But for now, all Steve thought was that he wouldn’t call him James if he didn’t like it, but he sure wasn’t going to call him Buchanan.

“Bucky,” Steve tried the word out. It made his new friend laugh again.

“I like it,” Bucky declared. When they got to the stop for the hospital, Bucky followed him off the train, chattering the whole time about baseball and how he was going to be a pitcher for the Dodgers someday. He waited on the steps while Steve took a smashed sandwich and a bruised apple into his mother, who fussed over his split lip and red knuckles but didn’t bat an eye at the sorry state of her dinner. Steve submitted to her ministrations over his face and took her kiss gladly. He didn’t mention Bucky, because he didn’t really expect to see him once he left the building, but there he was, tossing a rock into the air and then catching it. He slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders as they walked back to the train and Steve couldn’t stop smiling.

“Where do you get off?” Steve asked over the rattling of the train car. Bucky shrugged.

“I’ll go wherever you go,” he said. It was another thing that would make Steve sad once he was old enough to understand the tragedy of it, but at the time it just made him grin broadly because no one besides his mother had willingly gone anywhere with him.

“You don’t have anywhere to be?” Steve pressed. Bucky just grinned at him, throwing that arm around Steve’s neck again.

“I’m with you to the end of the line,” he announced, and neither of them ever looked back.


End file.
